Service Focus Helps Hillwood Lease Up Alliance

FORT WORTH, TX-A top executive from Hillwood Properties attributes the company’s recent success securing two new industrial leases at its Alliance Global Logistics Hub to a comprehensive program of services that go far beyond what most landlords offer their tenants. The new leases, completed in late March, total more than 650,000 square feet.

“If we were simply a real estate developer that was focused just on the box, the building, I don’t think that would get us far in the current economic climate,” Hillwood senior vice president Bill Burton tells GlobeSt.com. “There are a lot of good developer and good buildings out there right now. But we spend almost as much time working on issues like labor, productivity and efficiency at moving products as we do on development. That really makes the difference in getting tenants to sign.”

According to Burton, the Fort Worth-based developer has signed one million square foot of leases at Alliance since January. Several were renewals or expansion by existing tenants, but Alliance Brokers Inc. signed a new lease for 292,500 square feet of logistics space in Alliance Westport 20 and Q-Edge signed for 365,440 square feet of manufacturing and distribution space in Alliance Gateway 2. Alliance Brokers, an affiliate of Dallas-based Trans-Trade Inc., is a logistics company specializing in transporting heavy-load containers. Q-Edge, a subsidiary of Taiwan’s FoxConn Electronics, is an electronics assembler and distributor.